Prediction System for Geographical Locations of Users Based on Social and Spatial Proximity, and Related Method

Abstract

Determining a location of a user on a social network platform is difficult due to incorrect information or lack of information associated with the user. A system and method are provided to compute contextual similarity. This includes, for example, computing content similarity between seed users and followers / friends, as well as computing an engagement score between seed users and followers / friends. The system also computes geo-social-spatial similarity. The similarity scores are used in any inference computation to infer the geo-locations of the followers of the seed users, and subject users who share common friends with the seed users. The user geo-location inference database is updated using the result. Other seed users are selected, and the process is repeated.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62 / 347,846 filed on Jun. 9, 2016, entitled “Prediction System for Geographical Locations of Users Based on Social and Spatial Proximity, and Related Method” and the entire contents of which is incorporated herein by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]The following generally relates to a prediction system for geographical locations of users based on social and spatial proximity, and related methods.DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART[0003]Location is one of the most important data tags used to direct computations, recommendations, information and services to specific user accounts or user devices. For example, geo-targeting in digital advertising allows for significant personalization and accurate measurement. In addition, with the huge increase in the number of wearable computing devices, geo-targeting has never been more powerful.[0004]In traditional media, most geo-targe...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent is about a system and method for predicting the location of social media users based on their social interactions and geo-spatial proximity. The technical effect of this patent is to provide a way to accurately infer the location of users without relying on their IP addresses or other personal information, which is often not available or accurate. This is useful for various applications such as advertising and social media analytics. Additionally, the patent addresses the challenge of identifying the true home location of users based on their social data.

Problems solved by technology

In addition, with the huge increase in the number of wearable computing devices, geo-targeting has never been more powerful.

However, in digital media that assumption no longer holds true.

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